As salaam-o-Alaikum: that’s the greeting we've been taught. Add to that a salute and a stomp of the right foot, hard on the ground, and you will know, right away, that we are army brats.                            

What is your name? Ayesha.

What does your father do? He’s a Doctor.

Where?

That’s how far I get because the answer gets me these she-is-weird looks until I explain that – wait for it – I am an army brat. I know, I know I can say that in the hospital but what’s the fun in that?

Some might say these are absurdities but to me they are privileges which you are literally born with.

So this might get you wondering what the other privileges are. Be prepared to be jealous.

Wearing your dad’s cap is one of those things which is precious to no extent. Fidgeting in front of the mirror till we get it right. Stomping around the house as, no, not the king, but the Chief of Army staff.

As we grow older, these moments become our most cherish-able memories. We begin to dream of our own cap and comparing the captain in us to our past selves as the COASs of our parents. Finally, the transition from our dad’s cap to our own is downright emotional. These caps bring the widest smiles on our parents’ faces.

The artillery mess is definitely a win! No, I am not even going to explain it. It just is.

Our dhai ton is better than all!

Before you go “huh?” on my terminology, let me tell you it’s the brown open tent like covered truck which I spent my secondary school life traveling in. One word: awesome.

Time to make a confession: on the top of my long list of reasons to get into the army is the sarri! I still remember four lady army officers coming across our army home’s big lawn and, believe me, no movie scene, no matter how well executed, can beat that.

We don’t have homes all over the country. No one does. But we do have a second home everywhere. Huh? Army Public School! I have been to many schools but the memories and learnings of APS when I was in primary school will stay with me forever.

We all gather questions in our minds, growing up. Mine was: how do people manage to live in one place for more than the usual three years? I used to give people the what’s-wrong-with-you look when they used to say they had been living in the same place for five years or seven years and – to my utter shock, I still remember – fourteen years! Obviously, it was embarrassing to find out that it was the other way around.

So these were some of the simple, yet most cherished, aspects of an army brat's story. We are not only our daddies’ little girls, but also army brats – through and through.